Source routing is a protocol that partially or completely specifies, within a source route header, a route that a packet may travel via a network. The source route header may contain a strict list or a loose list of links and/or nodes to traverse. The strict list may explicitly list all of the links and/or nodes a packet may be transported over. Alternatively, the loose list may specify one or more links and/or nodes that the packet may need to traverse through to reach a destination, and may not include all the links and/or nodes that a packet may traverse through to reach the destination. As such, additional routing decisions may be used to route the packet through one intermediate point and to another intermediate point. Implementing source routing may simplify data forwarding network nodes and reduce routing time and latency when compared to using a forwarding table. Instead of performing lookup functions using the forwarding table, a network node (e.g. router or switch) may use the routing information within the source route header to forward the data packet.